cbt

young dave and i are in love! the object of our affections is the lady who is coming to help my boy with his fear. she is called claudia and she is quite wonderful. as soon as we met her i knew things were going to go well. she let me give her ear a little lick and i whispered a few well-chosen compliments while i was there. needless to say she was charmed.

then during the session young dave, who has yet to learn the finer points of romance, sat behind her on the sofa and alternated leaning his head on her shoulder with nibbling her ears. i need to work harder with him on the "wooing ladies" module. although claudia seemed very happy with his clumsy efforts and showed him some magic tricks involving a disappearing felt pen.

the session went very well. my boy learned how the fear is making him feel sick and that he needs to work on the thoughts that set the whole thing off. claudia is going to come again next week so young dave and i will have the chance to see her again soon. and then my boy and i are going to visit her at her consulting room.

i just hope the fear doesn't disappear too quickly...

this dog contains no nuts

dear readers, young dave is feeling very sorry for himself. he has been for a little op on his wedding tackle. there is now less wedding tackle than there was before and he is wearing a lampshade.

the op was done on wednesday. herself dropped young dave off at the vets before work. i am still made to go and see the evil vet as he understands my various scars but since we have moved young dave is registered with the vet in our street. when herself went to collect him the vet had a quiet word. it appeared that young dave had disgraced himself by howling all day, to the point where they had to put him in his own room to avoid him disturbing the other patients. quite a lot of the howling was before he had the op so it cannot be put down to pain.

the same thing happened last saturday when i had to pop up to the evil vets to have my shoulder checked. (the scar from my surgery has been a bit weird but it seems it is nothing to worry about). when herself and i got back young dave was upstairs in my boy's room. he had been wailing non-stop to the point where the neighbours would have been disturbed. i have to say it warms my old heart that the little chap is so fond of his big friend.

herself has decided to try to tackle the howling before it becomes too much of a habit. so young dave and i are having separate time in little doses so he gets used to his own company. it appears that young dave has a form of what my boy has. so he too is having cbt. the young folks in our family are a fearful lot.

while young dave has to make do with herself as his therapist, my boy is going to have a proper therapist to deal with his fear. with the help of the lovely renal counsellor, herself has found a lady. this lady has a beefburger daughter and an artistic son so she knows her stuff. she is going to visit on monday to see what is what with my boy. and when he is brave enough to go to her house for his sessions, i am going to be allowed to go with him to hold his hand. i am very much looking forward to these outings. even a dog of my advanced years needs to keep on top of his neuroses...

lifted spirits

well dear readers, things are a bit cheerier around these parts than when i last wrote. but before i tell you all about it, herself and i wanted to thank you all for your kind and thoughtful comments. it is a source of great support to know that folks around the world are thinking of us as we muddle through life.

yesterday was the day when the assistant head teacher came to visit us. there was a fair bit of tidying and dusting and so on beforehand. young dave was given strict instructions to leave his wedding tackle alone. my boy was told to avoid tricky subjects like dog porn. eventually the assistant head teacher arrived. young dave and i quickly ascertained that she was a lover of dogs and young dave gently chewed the hem of her skirt while i gazed into her eyes. this charm offensive soon paid off and after a long discussion with the peeps about ways in which my boy can be educated without actually going to school she went upstairs to chat to my boy in his room/cave. i am not sure what was spoken about as young dave and i were forced to stay downstairs with the peeps but it sounded fairly positive and my boy, who had been dreading his teacher seeing our house, came down smiling. it seems that for the time being the peeps are freed from the threat of court, which has cheered them up no end.

then herself dashed off to the clinic for sad, fearful and deranged young people. it seems that herself attending without my boy was possible and she spent a happy hour telling my boy's shrink about things. a plan was formulated whereby the shrink has put my boy on some new meds, in addition to his happy pills. the new meds are to help conquer severe anxiety. the shrink gave herself another appointment in 2 weeks at which hopefully my boy will attend.

when herself got home and told my boy all about the new meds he asked what sort they were.

"they're anti-psychotics," explained herself.

"that doesn't mean they will put me off my guns does it?" said my boy, with one eye on the important things as always.

herself re-assured him that his warlike tendencies would remain undiminished. then it was time for them to head off to the snake-charmers' house for my boy's smiths lesson. smiths is something to do with numbers and mr snake-charmer, a wizard with numbers, is teaching it to my boy in return for which herself is doing the snake-charmers' garden. or more accurately operating a sort of scorched earth policy in their garden. it is about to be re-arranged and herself told the snake-charmers firmly that they needed to have things pruned in order to see what was what. i think the plan is to have a sort of mediterranean theme, although from the sound of it it is more along the lines of savanah at the moment...

gloom and fear

the bird table/sculpture thingey

dear readers, yet again i must grovel to you and apologise for my lack of contact. i have had the devil's own job persuading herself to get on the keyboard. the reason for this is that herself has been suffering from gloom. it has some fancy medical name like repression or something but the bottom line is just plain gloom.

things were ok, or at least not too disastrous, until the peeps were summoned to a meeting at my boy's school. my boy, as regular readers will recall, has been suffering with fear. this has meant he has not found it all that easy to go out of the house. since going to school involves not just going out of the house but going in a car for 20 minutes, followed by a taxi for an hour, my boy has not been going to school. the peeps have been trying to do educational stuff at home. herself has set up a blog for my boy to write what he has learned. alas, he will not share it with the wider world or i would give you a link. the peeps have borrowed a laptop for him to work on so he is not in his room. this avoids him being tempted to play with his gun collection when he should be writing about how to make bread. herself has spent hours on the internet finding things that might tempt my boy's interest. however, none of this counts as school. not going to school is something of a problem and the school called in a person called an ee-wo. hence the meeting.

the peeps were dreading the meeting. the ee-wo's main function seems to be taking parents to court. if the peeps were taken to court it would be bad for both of them. because of where we live it would be the court where herself appears as a lawyer. himself works in a school and is clerk to the governors, among other things. so neither of them would exactly get a promotion if they were taken to court.

the ee-wo was scary. as soon as the peeps sat down she fixed them with a steely stare. but worse was to come. the assistant head waded in.

"does he know that his parents will be taken to court if he refuses to come to school?"

the peeps assured her that he did. herself tried to explain that they were treading a fine line at home between my boy's fragile nervous state and the need to make the education authority's figures look good. therefore, while they would like to get him to school, they were not willing to do it at the expense of my boy's mental health. further, my boy is now 5 foot 10 inches tall. he soars over both peeps. himself is recovering from abdominal surgery. so the old practice of picking my boy up under one arm no longer works. there is also the question of human rights. my boy seems to have human rights and herself explained that to force him to go out of the house against his will, particularly if this involved what is legally an assault, would almost certainly contravene his human rights. herself is nothing if not the lawyer.

"well, putting it bluntly, he has a choice. he can either come to school here or he will be removed from the roll and he will have to go to a school nearer to where you live." the assistant head is someone who has been very kind to my boy so this approach rather shocked the peeps. but statistics and figures and budgets wait for no man, or indeed boy.

the peeps went on to explain that herself has been trying to get help for my boy from the the clinic for sad, fearful and deranged young people for 2 months. she has been phoning at least once a week, sometimes more. so far no help has materialised. herself explained that the peeps were doing everything they could, and a lot more than most families would, but that they were only human. at this point she started to weep.

the meeting ended with an agreement that my boy could stay on their books for the time being and do work at home. this would allow him to be marked as there in spirit if not in body, some sort of psychic miracle invented by an accountant. if only the accountants could stretch to funding a teleporter we would be home and dry.

yesterday, after endless chasing by herself and a number of other people, the clinic for sad, fearful and deranged young people sent a letter with an appointment. it is at the hospital, which is some 5 miles away by car. this week is the first time my boy has been in a car in a month. by way of increasing in tiny baby steps he has managed to travel by car up the road to where we go for a walk without feeling sick. but suddenly trying to go 5 miles will not work.

herself wrote an e-mail to the clinic for sad, fearful and deranged young people, explaining that the reason for the appointment was my boy's fear. if he had been able to get to the clinic, quite a bit of the problem would already have gone. she said it was surprising that this fact had not found its way onto my boy's medical notes, given she has phoned so often and has explained the problem every single time.

so we are back to square one. until a report has been written by the clinic for sad, fearful and deranged young people, no help is available, and if my boy doesn't do the work set by the school the peeps face being dragged off to court.

as inspector gadget is fond of saying, you couldn't make it up...